Inside Out, Upside Down
by E E Merica
Summary: Slight AU. After being cornered in a dark alley and brutally beaten, Naruto is granted the ability to manipulate flesh at will by the Kyuubi. After seeing the effects of this ability, The Hokage places Naruto under the protection and tutelage of Morino Ibiki, one of the most feared men in Konoha. Feedback and commentary is appreciated. Rated M for violence and gory details
1. Chapter 1: Prologue

AN: Author notes are at the end, or in mid test where i deem them necessary. If they are in the text they will occur in parentheses, and be denoted by the [AN:] as the one here at the beginning or the ones at the end.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any related copyrights, trademarks, properties, or characters. I am in no way profiting from this literary venture except from the comments and reviews that I receive, which will only help me improve my writing.

"Speech"

"Thoughts"

**"Non-human speech"**

_**"Non-human thoughts"**_

Uzumaki Naruto was running away from the mob of civilians who, in their usual fashion, were chasing after the poor child brandishing clubs and fists. Presently he turned a corner and ran, and ran, and ran; crossing three streets until he finally ran into a dead end. The Konohagakure street planners must have been stoned when they were drawing up this area because all the surrounding streets twist and turn at random intervals in this district of town, making it easy to shake someone unfamiliar with the area, but impossible _not_ to get lost if you don't spend much time in the district.

Naruto reached the wall and had to put out his hands to stop himself from running into it, jamming his wrist and rendering escape by climbing impossible. He turned to face the mob of villagers and resigned himself to yet another beating as they approached, slowing down once they realized that the boy was cornered, and had nowhere to go. "I just want to go home, I don't want any trouble." Naruto started as he pressed himself flush against the wall. "I haven't done anything to-"

"Shut-up Demon brat," one of the villagers cut him off, "You jus hav…haven… haven… Ain't done anything recently!" another said, stumbling over his words, obviously quite drunk. "I mean jus today ya bump inna me and make me spill my sake. I had ta buy a whole nother bottle jus cause you di' that." These idiots were not just drunk, but thoroughly wasted, and quite obviously didn't give a damn about the consequences of their actions. After all, it was just the 'Demon Child' and everyone knew that he (and the village at large) would be 'better off dead' (Naruto, not the village at large. Then his death would be an exercise in futility; after all, how could his death be forgotten if there was no one around to not mourn him?)

"_Well shit," _Naruto thought, _"There's no reasoning with these pe-" _His thoughts were interrupted by a solid blow to the back of his head and the resulting starburst across his field of vision. Distracted by his temporary blindness, the young Naruto could not move out of the way of the flurry of blows that was directed at him. He endured the ministrations of the mob of tormentors a full five minutes before he gave in to the sweet void that is unconsciousness, knowing that with his Kami-forsaken luck he would wake up again to endure another beating. He just didn't know when.

* * *

"**Boy!" **Naruto heard as he began to stir. He was laying in about two and a half inches of water, and it was very uncomfortable. **"Get up, boy!" **the voice held authority, and sounded like it was used to being listened to. Naruto (wisely) chose to stand up.

"What? You want to beat me while I'm standing up?" Naruto snapped, hiding his fear of the voice. Becoming aware of his surroundings (a sewer), Naruto asked "Why am I in a sewer? Are you a pedophile? Because if you are I'm 'sposed to run away…."

"**NO DAMMIT I AM NOT A PEDOPHILE! NOW GET YOUR DUMB ASS OVER HERE, SO I CAN HELP MYSELF BY HELPING YOU!" **The voice, quite obviously, didn't like being called a pedophile. Naruto shivered, he didn't trust the voice. He thought that the old man had told him something about not trusting disembodied voices once….. then again he also had nothing better to do, and thus he went to find the source of the voice. Luckily (or unluckily) he didn't have to go far.

He arrived in a large, boxy room with three walls being about as normal as the walls in any other sewer, he guessed, and one being that of a large cage. Said cage-door-wall-thing had a tag with seal written on it right smack dab in the middle. Inside the cage were two big, red, slit-pupiled eyes. **"Ah, you've finally graced me with your presence…" **it paused obviously waiting for a response.

Naruto picked up on this, and since it wasn't saying anything else he said "You were expecting me? The Old Man told me not to talk to strangers, and I'm pretty sure that applies to floating pairs of red eyes too. Especially in a sewer..." Naruto stopped, with an expression that said he was quite obviously lost in thought.

"**I'm not a stranger, I've known you all of your miserable life… LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU BOY!" **With a start, Naruto snapped back to reality (this is debatable) and immediately gave the eyes his full attention. **"Now pay attention, I'm about to teach you something that could very well save your life. Come closer."**

Naruto walked closer to the cage, "Wait, how do you know me? I've never met you before, I'm pretty sure I'd remember-"

"**SHUT-UP BOY!" **the voice cut him off, **"I'll tell you eventually, but right now we have things to do. This may sting a bit." ** The tip of a tail pressed against Naruto's forehead, causing an incredible amount of pain to radiate out from the point of contact.

It was the worst pain that he had ever felt, moving out from his forehead, towards the back of his head, and then down through his skull. The pain moved from his head down the length of his spine, all the way to ends of his extremities. It was a burning, tearing sensation and beyond that the pain was indescribable.

"_It feels like my body wants to turn itself inside out" _he thought to himself, and succumbed once again to unconsciousness. He was to be disappointed, however, when his eyes opened and bloody tears began to flow from them. "MAKE IT STOP!" he screamed, "MAKE THE PAIN GO AWAY!" He reached out his hand and grabbed the ankle of his nearest aggressor and shrieked.

When Naruto made contact with the skin on the man's ankle all of the pain flowed from his body into his unfortunate (and unintended) victim's. The last thing he heard before he went out was the man screaming; music to his ears.

* * *

Minutes later, two masked ANBU were on the scene, and what they saw there could only be described as a charnel alleyway, and if it had been indoors, it would have easily rated charnel house. Naruto was lying on the ground, beaten and bloody, harmed, but not mortally. Knowing what had happened to him before, they knew that he would pull through. He, however, was not all that unusual; what was unusual was the quivering mass of flesh that his hand was embedded in.

It was gruesome. Wet and pulsating; lymph, bile and blood leaked out in small amounts all around the 'body,' if it could even be described as such. Judging by the steady beating of what looked to be a human heart, the rapid inflating and deflating of a couple of fleshy looking sacks that were probably lungs, the sound of muffled screams coming from inside the ball of flesh, and the flow of chakra through the 'body,' it seemed to be very much alive.

"What happened here?" the ANBU who was wearing a dog mask asked.

"I don't know, but we should probably get Naruto and the," he shudders, "the 'body' to the hospital." The other ANBU replied, this one was wearing a weasel mask.

"Right, I'll grab Naruto, you grab the 'body.'" Dog said.

"Hai." They both grabbed their respective burdens and stood up. When Naruto's hand left the 'body,' the flow of chakra into it ceased, but it still didn't 'die.' Not to say that it was still alive. "We must inform Hokage-sama of this as soon as possible. It is imperative that he know what happened."

Dog nodded, and they both _shunshined _off in the direction of the hospital. All that was left behind was a small pool of bodily fluids, and a swirl of leaves.

* * *

**Konoha Hospital, 9 hours later**

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage, was sitting in Naruto's hospital room waiting for the boy to wake up. He had to figure out what happened, and who or what did this or else Naruto was going to be the subject of even more abuse. _"I mean what's more demonic than turning someone inside out? As it stands right now, this does not bode well for the boy." _He moved towards Naruto's hospital bed, and stopped short. The boy twitched, and then started to moan as if in pain. _"This does not bode well at all."_

This child, who had the misfortune of not only being an orphan, but being hated by the vast majority of the villagers for reasons beyond his control, had experienced more than most of his veteran shinobi, and he had yet to see his seventh birthday. As it stands, this incident was likely to draw yet more of the villager's ire his way; something neither he nor Naruto needed. The Hokage sighed, there would probably be some kind of incident report over this that he was going to have to deal with. He was supposed to have time for his favorite little orange book (by his favorite student) today, but now? Now that wasn't very likely.

He let out another sigh. Hopefully Naruto would have some idea of what happened. Otherwise this could lead to something horrible.

* * *

"**Ah, boy, you're back. I see my 'lesson' helped." **Naruto looked up, and saw the same pair of red, slit-pupiled eyes as the last time he was there. He picked himself up off of the ground and walked towards the eyes once again. _**"I don't even have to ask him this time. I guess if there's one good thing about the kid he learns fast." **_

Naruto stopped in front of the cell door and stood there, looking the eyes straight in the… well eyes. He thought for a second and then spoke up, "What's your name? It's kinda hard to talk to you when I refer to you as a pair of eyes in my head. So what's your name?"

The eyes seemed to be a little surprised at this, he didn't know if it was because the boy was asking for his name, or if it was that he didn't already know who he was. He, being a fox, and therefore inherently deceptive, hid his surprise very well. **"I am the nine-tailed fox, the Kyuubi." **It stated. The Kyuubi waited for the boy's response, not really knowing what to expect since he wasn't displaying the same degree of fear that most did when in his presence.

"Alright fox, what the hell did you do? You said you were going to help me, but that thing you did to my forehead hurt more than all the beatings I got from the past year combined! How the hell did you help me?" Naruto demanded, he was breathing kind of hard and had grabbed the bars of the cage. He was about to continue when the fox tapped the bars, calling for silence.

**"Simply put, I allowed you to defend yourself. What you did to the one instilled fear of you, and what you can do to them in the many; a great being named Machiavelli once said it's better to be feared than loved, and I whole-heartedly agree with that sentiment. I'm sure you will find out what we did when you return to the waking world." **The fox said, taking some of the wind out of Naruto's sails. He sat for a few seconds, and let his words sink in. **"Is that satisfactory? I would like to go back to hating you, and you are making that rather difficult."**

Naruto thought for a second, wrapping his mind around what the fox had just told him. "Wait, so you're saying that the villagers are going to fear me even more now? Why would I want that?" The boy inquired, "And who's this Machiavelli character? Was he a great ninja?"

The Kyuubi laughed at Naruto's question. **"Boy, the villagers fear you for what I did nearly seven years ago, but after word gets out about the events of last night they will fear you for what **_**you**_** are capable of."**

"Yeah okay, I get that. Now tell me who Machiavelli is!" Naruto said, obviously a bit impatient. "please," he added as a sort of afterthought.

**"How polite of you. Fine I'll tell you but only because you said please: Nicholai Machiavelli was a great scholar that predated the Sage of the Six Paths. He literally wrote the book on how to be a successful politician. Something you may want to read if you actually want to become Hokage." **The fox said, **"Now, if you're done I'm sure you have some business to attend to in the waking world."**

Naruto nodded his head and closed his eyes. He faded away (AN: this is how I think it would look from the point of view of someone inside his mindscape) as he left his mindscape and returned to the waking world.

* * *

Naruto tentatively woke up to a soft(ish) bed, and dry clothes. He slowly opened his eyes and found, to his mild dismay, that he was in the hospital. He looked around the room, noting the lack of a window large enough for him to escape out of, a couple of chairs, and to his mild surprise, the Hokage. "Hey Jiji-san, what happened?"

"Ah! Naruto-kun, you're finally awake." The Hokage said, "Are you feeling alright? Does it hurt to move?" The concern in his voice was a tangible thing, it was obvious that the Old Man was quite concerned for the child.

Naruto nodded, "I'm fine Hokage-ji, but you still need to tell me what happened." He sat up, and moved his legs off of the bed, so he could kick them over the side.

"Well, we were actually hoping that you could tell us." The Hokage said, motioning for Naruto to stand up and follow him. "I'll show you what we found." He stated, as they left the room.

"Oh, so it's a surprise? I wonder what it is? Where is it?" Naruto excitedly asked as they set off in the direction of the ICU. They walked for a few minutes before stopping in front of a door with two ANBU operatives guarding it. They stopped for a moment.

"Dog, Weasel, we're going inside. Follow us." There was a chorus of "'Yes, Hokage-sama's" and the quartet entered the room. What they saw was still shocking to the three older men who had already seen it umpteen times that day, but there reactions paled in comparison to Naruto's.

Naruto's face paled, and his breathing got a little shallow. He started to retch, and then dry-heave as the nature of what he saw in front of him struck him. It was a wet, glistening ball of flesh, with organs and some bones on surface. It was sitting on a table with all kinds of tubes and machines hooked in to it, and a puddle of what looked to be bloody water radiating out from it. Naruto nearly fainted from the sight of the horror in front of him.

The Hokage, seeing the look of abject terror on Naruto's face, grabbed his shoulder and steadied him a bit. He shook the boy to get his attention, and to get him to take his eyes off of the 'body,' though they had figured out by now that it was very far from dead. "Naruto, you're fine. We're not going to do anything to you." Hiruzen turned to Dog, "Explain what you witnessed to Naruto."

The ANBU nodded and related what he had experienced the night before to Naruto starting from when he heard him scream, until they brought him to the hospital. "So you see, because your hand was in the 'body' when we found you, the most logical conclusion would be that while the mob was beating you, you somehow turned this man inside out using some kind of previously unknown jutsu." He finished

Naruto stood there for a moment, completely silent, and then he started to giggle, and then chuckle, and then he fell into a full blown laughing fit. "What? What's so funny? Was it something I said?" Dog questioned with an inquisitive look on his face, albeit it was underneath the mask.

After a few minutes Naruto calmed down, then after another couple of minutes he caught his breath. "No Dog-san, it wasn't anything you said. It's just that the fox was right. It _is _better to be feared than loved, especially if I can do something like that." Naruto grinned happily, not realizing the significance of what he had just said. "Hey, Jiji-san, do you think I could learn how to do that whenever I want? I bet then people wouldn't beat me up anymore."

The Hokage just stared at the boy in awe, "I-I'm sorry Naruto, did you say fox?" The Hokage asked rather hesitantly.

"Yeah, I was getting beat up by a mob of people, and then I got hit in the head a few times and I blacked out. When I woke up I was in this sewer with a big pair of red-eyes, and the eyes told me that they were going to help me and then they tapped me on the forward with the tip of a tail, and I fell unconscious again. Then when I woke up I was in really horrible pain, so I grabbed the closest person to me and the pain went away and I blacked out again. Then I woke up and the eyes told me that they were the Kyuubi, and then I woke up in the hospital." Naruto recounted his memories of the events of last night/this morning to the other three people in the room. Amazingly, he said all that in just one breath, leaving the two ANBU awestruck, and the Hokage with a jaw that would not respond to his commands to close.

After what seemed like a rather lengthy expanse of time, but was actually only a few moments, the Hokage regained his composure. "So, we can reasonably say that you did this to that person?" the boy nodded. "And that this is a skill you would have come in to anyway, since the Kyuubi said he 'taught' you how to do this?" To this, Naruto nodded again. "Right. Dog, go find Ibiki and tell him to meet us in my office. Weasel, you shall escort Naruto and I to the Hokage Tower. Naruto, here is a change of clothes, go get dressed." He said. He handed Naruto the clothes, and the boy changed into an orange t-shirt with the leaf symbol on it, and a pair of black pants, and put on his sandals.

"If everybody is ready," the Hokage received a trio of nods, "Then let us be off."

* * *

Dog popped in at T & I headquarters, and went to Ibiki's office. "Yo. The Hokage needs you in his office at the tower ASAP." The ANBU operative stated.

Morino Ibiki is a tall man, topping out at about 6'3" and weighing in at about 180 lbs. he cuts an impressive figure, even before you take in to account the way he dresses. Ibiki wears standard grey fatigues and a black high-collared trenchcoat. His face is thoroughly scarred, and his scalp is covered in all types of scars from your standard lacerations to burn scars to screw holes; thankfully his hitai-ate is a bandanna that he uses to cover his scar collection. All in all Ibiki is an imposing man, made even scarier when you take in to account his position as the head of the T&I department. He is not one to be trifled with.

"I'll be there soon." Ibiki stated.

* * *

"I think it is rather obvious why Naruto could be an asset to T&I in the future, especially if we can find finer ways for him to use his '[Flesh Style]' (AN: Until I can find an accurate translation for any Flesh Style jutsu I make up, when in the story Flesh Style will be written in brackets, so don't blow a gasket over non-japanese jutsu names). Imagine how fast someone would crack if they were skinned alive?" The Hokage asked rhetorically. He knew how fast someone could break from torture like that, he had done it to an enemy shinobi during one of the wars. He shuddered; it was not something he wanted to remember. "I would consider it a personal favor if you looked after the boy, and helped in his training to bring this [Flesh Style] under control."

"I'm sorry Hokage-sama, but let me clarify something here. Naruto has a bloodline that allows him to manipulate peoples flesh?" The Hokage nodded, "He can use this turn people inside out?" another nod, "You want me to look after the boy, I would assume you want me to become his guardian?" yet another nod, "You want me to oversee his training in a style that none of us really know anything about?" one more nod, "Will I be drawing extra pay for this?" you guessed it, another nod, "Okay. I understand. However, there is one last thing I want to know: how do I know that he isn't going to turn me inside out while I'm training him?" Ibiki finished his string of questions.

The Hokage began to nod and then stopped mid-motion. He had a thoughtful look on his face before he turned to Naruto and asked "Naruto, will you promise not to hurt Ibiki-san if he agrees to train you?"

Naruto looked at The Hokage like he was crazy, "I promise not to hurt Ibiki-san if he agrees to train me. I don't think I could do much to him anyway, he's too big and scary." Naruto looked at Ibiki and smiled, although we will probably never know why.

"Ibiki-san, is that sufficient?" Hiruzen asked, looking at the mentioned Tokubetsu Jonin.

"Yes Hokage-sama, I accept this mission. I agree to look after the boy, and oversee his training." Ibiki said. _"You owe me big for this old man, and it isn't my fault if the kid gets screwed up from living with me. It was, after all, your idea." _

"Wait, Hokage-ji, so Ibiki-san is going to be my friend now?" Naruto asked, with more than a hint of enthusiasm in his voice.

The Hokage nodded, "I would recommend that you go and get Naruto's things from his apartment before the villagers learn about his new 'gift, ' and decide to vandalize his apartment again." The Hokage suggested/ordered.

"By your leave then," The Hokage nodded, and Naruto and Ibiki left the office.

"I honestly have no idea what I've just done." Hiruzen said to himself.

* * *

"Ibiki-san, you're a ninja right?" Ibiki nods, "Then how come I've never seen you around the village before?" Naruto asked.

Ibiki gave Naruto an appraising look, "I work in the T&I department, I spend a lot of time there, and I live on the other side of the village from your apartment, so it isn't really all that surprising that you haven't ever seem me around before. To be fair, I'd only seen pictures of you before today, with capture on sight orders for when you pulled larger scale pranks."

"Eh? I rated capture on sight? Really?" Ibiki nodded, "Awesome!" Naruto smiled from ear to ear.

It was infectious, Ibiki also started to smile, which terrified any and all villagers that saw him and created a bubble of space around him and Naruto for them to move in. _"This might actually turn out to be a mutually beneficial relationship" _Ibiki thought, and his smile widened much to the dismay of the villagers.

"Oh, hey! Ibiki-san we're almost at my building! Then we can get my stuff and we can go to your apartment!" Then he got a thoughtful look on his face, "Thank you for agreeing to train me Ibiki-san." Naruto bowed after he said this.

"Let's just get your stuff so we can get to my apartment. I'm getting hungry, and I can't just go to the T&I cafeteria like I usually do this time of day. So let's move!" Ibiki said. Naruto's enthusiasm was rubbing off on him already. This just scared the villagers around them even more; they began to just completely avoid the two of them.

They arrived at Naruto's apartment complex, and Naruto opened the gate. They proceeded up the stairs to the boy's floor and turned towards his door. When they got to his door, Naruto opened it and standing inside was a civilian with a can of spray paint vandalizing Naruto's apartment. Written on the walls were such eloquent phrases as "Demon Child" and "Fox Boy" and, this was a new one, "Demonic Sake-Bottle-Breaking Punching-Bag."

"Hey, Ibiki-san this is one of the guys that was beating me last night." Naruto said. On hearing Ibiki's name the man flinched. "Are we gonna do anything to him?"

"Now Naruto-san, one of the things you should know about me is that in these situations it isn't a question of what I'm going to do, but what I'm not going to do." Ibiki had a sadistic grin on his face, "Now pay attention, I might test you on this later."

* * *

"And that, Naruto-san, was your first lesson in the fine art of torture and interrogation. Now not only do we know who his friends are, but we have also punished him for vandalizing your home and brutalizing you yesterday." Ibiki finished. Naruto had a pad of paper and a pencil out, and he was taking notes and hanging on Ibiki's every word. He would be prepared for that test, by Kami, or his name wasn't Uzumaki Naruto.

"Ibiki-san, when is the test?" Naruto asked, "I want to know how long I have to study."

Ibiki looked over at Naruto and saw his notebook, pencil, and the amount of notes he taken and his jaw-dropped. "Oh? You thought I was serious? Good! I will be giving you a test on the first three lessons after you have learned them, so until then you can study." Ibiki stated. _"I didn't think he would actually take that seriously, now I have to make a written test and devise some sort of lesson plan. More work than I need."_

"Well then, let's get to it so we can leave!" Naruto exclaimed as he set to work gathering up his posessions. "Then we can get something to eat and go to your apartment."

Ibiki found himself smiling for the third time that day, well second if you don't count the sadistic grin.

* * *

They left Naruto's apartment building, and were in the middle of a heated discussion about where they were going to eat. Naruto was firmly rooted in the ramen camp, whereas Ibiki was entrenched in dango city. Seeing as there weren't any _good_ restaurants in Konohagakure that served both, this was turning in to a protracted battle of wills. This could not end well for the village.

Ibiki paused for a second, "Wait, I have an idea. Does Ichiraku Ramen do take out?" Naruto nodded his head, "Well then we can have dango AND ramen, and neither of us will have to cook!"

"Really?" Ibiki nodded an affirmative, "Then what are we waiting for, I'm hungry!"

* * *

Ibiki's apartment was rather spartan, with little furnishing aside from your basic couch, bookshelf, table, chairs, and kitchen, at least when you walk in that's what it looks like. There was a hallway that lead to the bathroom, and three bedrooms, one of which he had converted in to a study. Being the head of T&I paid well, and although it wasn't very obvious, the fact that he had two bedrooms and a study made it rather clear to see.

The apartment was in that comfortable state of disorganization that any single man is familiar with, where anyone who had never been there before would wander around and wonder how you ever found anything. Ibiki didn't get visitors very often, but that didn't mean that he minded having them in anyway. Most people just found him rather off-putting, and so he suffered thusly.

Presently the two new companions entered the apartment, and Naruto was astounded at the interior. He looked around and saw the color of the walls. "Ibiki-san, were the walls painted forest-green when you bought your apartment?"

"What? Uh yes they were." Ibiki lied, he didn't want the kid to think he was soft. _"Wait, it's not even been a day, and the kid's opinion already matters to me?" _he thought, "Come on, Naruto-san, let's eat."

Ibiki lead Naruto to the table and they unpacked the dango and the ramen. He got out a few dishes and some chopsticks and they proceeded to enjoy their meal. Both them acknowledged that the others preferred food had its merits, though neither of them admitted it out loud. After they finished the meal, Ibiki gave Naruto a tour of his apartment.

As he lead Naruto down the hall, he pointed out the doors, "The door on the right is my study, at the back of the hall is the bathroom, the door next to the bathroom on the left is my room, and then this door," he pointed to the first door on the left, "is now your room."

"Eh? So I really get to stay here?" Naruto asked with quite a lot of incredulity in his voice.

"What have I gotten myself into?" Ibiki asked no one in particular, then to Naruto he said "Yes, you get to stay with me from now on. The Hokage thought it would be a good idea for me to see to your training and well-being since I can teach how to use your special skill set to its fullest as a tool for torture." He handed Naruto the storage scroll that they had put all his things in, "unpack and go to bed. Tomorrow we stop in at T&I first thing in the morning, and then your training starts."

Naruto could only nod, because the sadistic grin on Ibiki's face honestly scared the living shit out of him.

End Chapter One

* * *

AN: So that was the first chapter of my first excursion into Naruto fan-fiction, and second ever story I've started. Ibiki is going to be OOC, and obviously Naruto is too. I don't know about my pairing yet, but I do have a couple (of pairings) in mind (NarutoXKurenai and NarutoXFemHaku being my favorite pairings) but I don't think I will be having any lemons. Unless I get a really good beta that is willing to do that for me, in which case there might be lemons late, late, late, late later on. So review please, since this is my first time writing a Naruto fic, and I could really use a beta, so if you're interested in that, send a PM my way. Oh, and if you want me to update with any semblance of speed, you really ought to review.

Thank you,

E E Merica


	2. Chapter 2: Training and The Academy

AN: Hello again! For the real authors note read the chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any related copyrights, trademarks, properties, or characters. I am in no way profiting from this literary venture except from the comments and reviews that I receive, which will only help me improve my writing.

_Claimer: I own Dr. EE, Minion Merica, as well as all iterations of the OC Ranex Orichar. And I own the [Flesh Style] as well. So please, don't rip any of these off. Or I will find you. Unless you ask for my express permission first, then it might be okay._

"Speech"

"Thoughts"

"Non-human speech"

_**"Non-human thoughts"**_

_AN: Let the training montage… BEGIN!_

* * *

**Ibiki's Apartment, The Next Morning**

Naruto was yanked from a sound sleep by the sound of pounding on at his door. He opened his eyes and proceeded to panic until he remembered the events of the day before. _"This is my room in Ibiki's apartment. So it wasn't a dream." _

"Hey brat, get up! Its 4:30, we're going to be late!" Ibiki yelled.

"Five more minutes," Naruto groaned. _"It definitely wasn't a dream."_

"Hey brat, if you don't get up now we won't be able to eat breakfast…." Ibiki trailed off. He heard Naruto gasp, then he heard clothing rustling and heavy footfalls moving rapidly around the room. He stepped back from the door just in time to miss getting hit full on in the face.

The kid was out and fully dressed at the mention of food, Ibiki looked down at his watch _"Wow, under a minute, I'll have to remember that one." _He looked over to Naruto again, "Alright, let's go eat then. Follow me boy."

Ibiki lead Naruto out to the kitchen and an immediate assault by the smell of toast and eggs. Naruto grabbed a seat at the table and served himself, with Ibiki following suit a few moments later. "Thank you for breakfast Ibiki-san." Naruto said in between bites, "So what are we going to do today? Are you going to start training me? Are we going to have another lesson?"

"We are going to start your training today, yes, and if you're lucky we will have another lesson, but first we have to go to the T&I building. I need to leave orders for my subordinates, and the details of where they can find us if they need me." Ibiki answered, "We have to finish breakfast before we do anything though…. So eat faster."

Naruto nodded and proceeded to shovel down the rest of his food. "Done, let's go Ibiki-sensei! The sooner we leave, the sooner we can get started!" Ibiki glanced up at the boy, glanced down at his watch, and thought _"If he learns as fast as he eats training him will be no trouble at all."_

* * *

After the duo had cleaned up breakfast, they were out the door and headed off towards T&I. Luckily (but knowing Ibiki it was probably by design) Ibiki's apartment complex was located quite close to their destination, so they didn't have to walk far. When they arrived at the T&I building Ibiki pulled out a rather large key ring that had a sizable amount of keys on it. He chose a rather un-assuming, average looking, key and unlocked the door.

"Hey, Ibiki-sensei, what do the rest of those keys do?" Naruto asked, gesturing at the key ring.

"Nothing, well except for the one that opens my apartment; the rest are just for show." Ibiki replied. Upon hearing this, Naruto's jaw unhinged and nearly fell off his face. He had to force it back in to place before he could respond.

"Ibiki-sensei, that's a great prank! I bet if anyone ever tried to steal your keys they'd get frustrated and just return them!" Naruto grinned up at Ibiki, "Maybe you could help me with some of my pranks after all…." At this, Ibiki cracked a smile. "You could be my accomplice, or at least my man on the inside."

"Maybe I could," Ibiki said with a dismissive tone, "But we have more important things to do than think about pranks. Come on." Ibiki opened the door and ushered Naruto inside. To the say that it was a pleasant looking building would be imbecilic. The entranceway of T&I was a place meant to incite fear and crush hope. The walls were painted black, every edge was hard and angular, all of the corners were sharp (all of them). The lighting was done just right so that dark, heavy shadows were in every corner, not enough to hide in, but plenty enough to play havoc with one's peripheral vision. Naruto visibly shuddered, Ibiki just kept walking towards another door.

When Ibiki opened this door the lights came on revealing a well-lit hallway with a water cooler, of all things, about twenty feet into the hallway. It was just sitting there. Ibiki got about halfway to the water cooler and realized that Naruto was still standing there in front of the door. He followed the boy's line of sight and realized he was looking at the water cooler.

"Hey, Naruto-san, why are you just standing there? We've got things to do, you'll have plenty of time to gawk later." Ibiki snapped his fingers for effect. Naruto shook his head and then nodded.

"But it just seems so out of place…" Naruto muttered to himself as he closed the distance with Ibiki.

They started walking again and stopped (again) on the other side of the cooler. On the wall was a bulletin board covered in all sorts of notices and announcement, with a few wanted posters in the mix. Ibiki pulled a note out of his pocket, and tacked it on to the board, right in the middle.

Naruto read the note aloud to himself: "To the T&I department, The Hokage has assigned me an important mission that I am to perform every morning for the foreseeable future. It is off-site. Mitarashi Anko is in charge when I'm not on the premises. If necessary you may forward my 'appointments' to training ground thirteen. Ibiki." Naruto finished reading the letter, and then looked over at Ibiki, "Hey, who's Mitarashi Anko?"

"She's a crazy lady who happens to be my second in command. You'll probably meet her this afternoon." Ibiki set off towards the door with Naruto in tow, "Now the fun begins."

Naruto cringed.

* * *

Anko was sprawled out on her bed, still very much asleep. A ball of dust floated down off of her ceiling fan and landed on her face. She sneezed, shook her head, and went back to sleep.

* * *

"Alright, first thing's first. Stamina training! We are going to run three laps around the village, and then we hit the library." Ibiki declared, for his part Naruto was startled.

"You're going to run in that Ibiki-sensei? Isn't that kind of uncomfortable?" Naruto asked, looking at Ibiki like he was nuts.

"No, it isn't uncomfortable, I kind of got used to it…" Ibiki said, trailing off at the end.

"How come we're going to the library for stamina training?" Naruto asked. When he didn't immediately get an answer, he realized that Ibiki had already started running, "Hey!" he yelled.

"That's what you get for not paying attention, for that we are going to run two more laps." Ibiki called back. Naruto groaned, and set off after his sensei.

* * *

**The Library, 2.5 hours later**

"What are we getting here?" Naruto inquired, as they walked in to the library. He was sore and out of breath from the run, but still had enough enthusiasm to be curious.

"Books" Ibiki replied. He wasn't even winded.

"On what?" Naruto continued, not satisfied with the first answer.

"Chakra control, psychology, anatomy, taijutsu. That kind of stuff." Ibiki replied.

"How is that stuff gonna help me be a better ninja?" Naruto asked, he was getting a little frustrated.

"It's going to make you a better ninja by making me a better teacher." Ibiki answered, he was starting to get a little exasperated. _"Remember, you're getting paid for this, you can put up with it."_

"Oh, so you're not a good teacher Ibiki-sensei?" Naruto queried.

"I don't know, you're the first student I've ever had that isn't already a chuunin. We are both in new territory here." Ibiki answered, _"Now that was just uncalled for. Maybe he's trying to get inside my head…."_

"That still doesn't explain how the library is stamina training," Naruto grimaced, remembering his question from before they started running.

Ibiki grinned, "You'll find out." He said, as he handed Naruto a stack of books. "Carry these."

* * *

AN: This is where the Training Montage really starts. Now to accelerate the passage of time! Minion Merica! Increase the speed of the Earth's rotation by 500%! But Dr. EE, it will take a while to get up to speed. I don't care! I can work around the delay; I pay you to do my bidding, not question my orders. But sir, you don't pay me at all….. …. **BACK TO THE STORY NUMB-NUTS! THE READERS WANT TO KNOW WHATS HAPPENING! **Yes Boss! They both replied

As they left the library, Ibiki leading, and Naruto following him with the large stack of books that they checked out. Judging by the books they had checked out, Naruto was to be taught about chakra control, taijutsu, ninjutsu, psychology, anatomy, and basic medicine. Ibiki was explaining to the blonde child how all these subjects tied into his ninja training and how they would help him in not only learning to control his new abilities, but to use them to his advantage. Once Ibiki finished explaining the purpose of all the different subjects he was to study he began lecturing Naruto on the nature of chakra; how it was divided into two types: physical chakra, which is the chakra in one's body that is increased by training and exercise, and spiritual chakra, which is the energy of the mind and experience that is increased by learning, meditation, and (gasp) experience.

As Ibiki finished his lecture on chakra, the duo arrived at training ground thirteen. He motioned for Naruto to set the books down on a flat rock. He picked up the book on chakra control and flipped to the first exercise: leaf clinging. He went through the procedure, explaining the purpose and how one actually went about doing the exercise, and then demonstrated the exercise by making a leaf adhere to the tip of his nose. He handed Naruto a leaf, and instructed him to do the same.

Naruto placed the leaf on his forehead and proceeded to channel chakra from his forehead, in to the leaf. Ibiki was surprised, it looked like he would get it on his first try….. until it started to fold in on itself and it exploded in a burst of green mist. They continued like this for about an hour and a half, with Naruto making exponential progress in the amount of time that he could hold the leaf on his forehead before it would (invariably) explode. After the forty-first instance of green mist, Naruto got frustrated and asked "Ibiki-sensei, what am I doing wrong? Why does it keep exploding?"

Ibiki handed his charge leaf number forty-two, and said "Once you get the leaf to stick, focus on keeping it at equilibrium." Naruto listened to Ibiki's words, and applied them to what he was doing. Once he felt the leaf stick to his forehead, he focused on keeping it in balance, making sure that only the amount of chakra needed to keep it in balance was added. No more, no less. After ten minutes without green mist Ibiki declared Naruto done with the exercise, and told him it was time to move on.

After they finished the leaf clinging, Ibiki took Naruto through some basic taijutsu katas. Once he had shown them all to Naruto, he started to observe his form and correct his mistakes. This went on for an hour before they broke for lunch.

After lunch, the duo made their way back to the T&I building, where Ibiki would continue to teach him about anatomy, medicine, and psychology, and maybe he would hold lesson two, but only if they had a willing teacher's aide.

* * *

When they arrived at T&I they were greeted by the sight of a young woman with purple hair wearing a tan overcoat, an orange miniskirt, a mesh bodysuit, and little else. When she spotted Ibiki she shouted "The Boss is back, at least try to look like you're doing something important people!"

"Anko, I'm glad to see you didn't burn down the building," Ibiki said in greeting, "Well at least this time."

"That was completely by accident, and besides it wasn't really my fault," she said with a contrite look on her face. She spotted Naruto and asked "Who's the kid?"

"Ah, this is Uzumaki Naruto, he's the mission I mentioned in my letter. The Hokage has tasked me with seeing after his training and well-being." He said gesturing at Naruto, "Naruto, this is Anko. She's the crazy lady I was telling you about this morning." Ibiki pointed at Anko. "Now," Ibiki clapped his hands, "Anko, how about you keep him entertained, while I go catch up on paperwork and the like."

"Wait, you're just leaving him with me? I don't know anything about kids!" Anko shouted after her superior, she looked down at Naruto who had a huge smile on his face.

"Anko-chan, are you going to be my friend now too?" the little blonde demon container asked, his face the picture of childlike innocence.

"I guess so." She said. She perked up a bit, "So, Naruto-kun, what do you do for fun?" Anko asked with a mischievous grin.

"Define fun." Naruto stated, mirroring her grin. The two of them laughed maniacally, much to the dismay of the people around them.

* * *

The afternoon proved to be rather uneventful. The only thing of note was Naruto's introduction to Anko, and the havoc the pair wrought while Anko was 'entertaining' Naruto; after she returned him to Ibiki, he continued with Naruto's education. Aside from that, nothing of import happened until it was time to clock out and head home.

* * *

Anko decided that she was going to join our pre-pubescent protagonist and his sensei for dinner. Naturally, Naruto was thrilled by this prospect and immediately threw the full force of his child-cuteness-compulsion behind it; why wouldn't he want to have dinner with two people he considered to be his friends? Ibiki, however, was not quite as pleased at this as Naruto was. Knowing Anko, she had something planned and although he knew she had absolutely no intentions of hurting the kid, he didn't think that what plans she (probably) had would be in his best interests. By his, of course he meant himself (Ibiki).

Ibiki looked down at Naruto. That was a horrible mistake. He quickly looked over to Anko – even worse! _"I am one of the hardest men in Konoha! I have been tortured within an inch of my life, I have tortured more than a few men to death to get what __**I**__ want, and yet none of that makes me proof to puppy-dog eyes?" _Ibiki thought, feeling rather disappointed with himself, _"Look away! Maybe it will break the compulsion!" _

It was no use however, as the forbidden art that his optic nerve was being bombarded with prevented one from looking away until the affected person acquiesced to the demands of the user. It was almost as powerful as Might Guy's dreaded 'Sunset of Youth' genjutsu that he sometimes used when Hatake Kakashi agreed to spar with him. Ibiki, the dreaded master torturer of Konoha T&I, had no choice but to give in to a (nearly) seven year old child, and his immediate subordinate who was acting like a seven year old child. This did not bode well.

* * *

**Ibiki's Apartment, 20 minutes later**

As it turned out, Anko only wanted to have a hand in the boy's training. And so as dinner progressed they discussed the specific points of the arrangement. When they finally had all the details ironed out they had agreed to alternate on a daily basis, with Ibiki teaching him taijutsu and the more academic subjects he was being learning, and Anko teaching him ninjutsu and chakra control. They would both oversee his training in the [Flesh Style], but this wasn't to become a major issue until he could actually control it and his chakra, and decided to start making techniques for combat use.

Ibiki (grudgingly) agreed to give Anko a cut of what he was being paid to train the boy, but only on the condition that she feed him on the days that he was under her care. After this final detail was established, they finished their meal and parted ways.

* * *

AN: Doctor, the rotational accelerator, it is ready! On my mark you will throw the switch. Yes, Doctor. 3…. 2…. 1….. **MARK! **And thus time was accelerated, and I **THE BOSS! **(as in E E Merica) have skillfully avoided writing more extended instances of dialogue (because I think I'm horrible at it). Finally on to the true training sequence. I apologize for the delay, I just kind of had to get through the first day to establish what his training was going to be like. So I could deviate from that paradigm.

As the days passed and became weeks, and the weeks passed and became months, Naruto grew in skill as a shinobi (though not yet part of the official forces), mastering the leaf clinging exercise by the end of the week, learning tree climbing by the end of the first month, and generally refining his chakra control. The Hokage gave Anko and Ibiki authorization to teach him the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (shadow clone), so as to accelerate his training, and allow him to learn more at once. By using shadow clones, Naruto learned how to do basic things with his [Flesh Style] like cause the skin on one's arm to blister or make one's hair fall out. It was as he was torturing a rat that he discovered physical pain was the cost of using [Flesh Style] techniques (much like the sharingan causes blindness), for when he wanted to cause blisters to appear on the rat, it felt like he had plunged his hand in to a pot of boiling water.

After learning of this, Ibiki informed the Hokage. The Old Man was concerned for Naruto's welfare, but also saw his usefulness as a weapon. If treated well, and trained properly he would become a powerful asset to the village, thus the training to increase his pain threshold began (maybe not the brightest of ideas, but one founded in reason all the same).

Ibiki had reservations about this course of action; after all, the child had only just turned seven that past week, and that was a fiasco. They couldn't leave the apartment that day for fear of Naruto being beaten again, and him potentially killing someone by shrinking their lungs or something like that. However, after informing Naruto about what the Hokage had suggested, and weighing the benefits (not falling unconscious in the middle of using his bloodline, potentially saving him and his teammates lives; not giving a rat's ass about beatings anymore) and the costs (shortening of his already stunted childhood; this kind of training ages people mentally, and the sheer amount of pain that he would be experiencing), he had said that he would gladly undergo the training if it could potentially save lives someday. And besides, he couldn't be fainting in the middle of an interrogation now could he? It would reflect badly on his Niisan. At that Ibiki had smiled.

Once they had established this Ibiki accelerated his education in the academic areas he was being taught, and the three lessons of the fine art of torture. The First Lesson: Control the environment. Every aspect of your subject's existence that you control is a step closer to the information that you need. The Second Lesson: Follow the directives of your superiors. The subject can only endure so much at one time, and to go beyond is to render them mentally destroyed and useless. Get the information within as timely a manner as possible, and dispose of the subject in the manner specified by your superiors whether it be execution, or held for ransom until their home village decides to pay for their return. The Third Lesson: Be the master of your emotions. Showing the slightest hint of emotion to the subject shows a flaw in your control. If they can get you to show emotion, then they have gained control over an aspect of their environment—their existence. That deviates from The First Lesson. To show emotion is to show weakness, and to show weakness is to lose the information, to lose the information is to deviate from the directives of your superiors, to deviate from the directives of your superiors is treason. To go against The Third Lesson is to commit treason. Treason earns you a chair in T&I on the _other_ side of the table.

He had also taught him rudimentary psychology and anatomy by the end of the first months. To know the body and the mind is to know the subject. If you can inflict both physical and mental pain with the same action, IE: pulling the still beating heart from your subjects chest and holding it in your hand while it continues to pump blood throughout their body; connected to all the arteries and veins and shove it in their face,then they are bound to break.

Anko hadn't let up either. Before the pain training was set to start, she had him working double time on his chakra control. By the end of these first months, Anko had him running up trees while holding leaves on his body in three different places. The kid was a fast study, and he was just beginning to get the water walking when they started the pain training.

Pain training consisted of endurance training of various sorts. From starvation to survival, coal walking to walking on the tops of bamboo shoots Naruto had to endure the worst physical pain they could think up for him, all for the sake of training; after six months they had something to show.

* * *

**The Hokages Office, 6 months after the start of pain training, 9 months after the start of training**

Naruto was standing in front of the Hokage's desk, holding a rather large rat in his right hand. He had a rather cold, hard look on his face, a drastically different expression from the one the boy wore just six months before. "Show him, Naruto-san." Ibiki ordered.

Naruto complied, he began collecting chakra in his right hand, he then formed half of the ram seal with his left, set his jaw and released the chakra into the rat with a grunt of pain. He grit his teeth as he continued to channel chakra in to the rat, until four minutes, twenty seconds (more time means it hurts less; the faster he does something like this, the greater the pain since he's working with more [Flesh] chakra in a shorter timeframe. It takes the same amount of chakra though.) later the rat had been turned completely inside out, just like the man from oh so very long ago. He cut off the flow of chakra, and let out a sigh of relief. The pain was gone, as he had learned early on, the pain only lasted as long as he was manipulating the [Flesh] chakra, but the magnitude of the pain varied directly with the magnitude of [Flesh] chakra he was attempting to manipulate.

"Progress! We have achieved the goal of the endurance training after only six months, when we had thought it would take much longer. Ibiki-san, I declare his endurance training complete, you may pick up on the original program that you had devised before we started this training." The Hokage paused, then looked over at Naruto, "I'm proud of you Naruto-kun, you have gone through more these past six months than most shinobi go through in six years. You will make a fine shinobi someday, and you shall be an asset to this village."

"Thank you Hokage-ji." Naruto said. He smiled, a warm smile though the previous look of hardened determination was still detectable. "So do I get to start the academy come this fall?"

The Hokage looked at Ibiki, then he looked down at Naruto, and smiled. "I was actually going to suggest to Ibiki-san that he enroll you next term. You shall enter the academy Naruto-kun. I've no doubt that you shall do well." He looked at Ibiki, "In the meantime, you shall do as I ordered and continue his training in the original fashion."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," the two chorused. They bowed, and took their leave of his office.

* * *

**Accelerated Time**

They picked up his training where they had left off six months ago, and began to teach him ninjutsu, mid-level taijutsu, and water walking. They had foregone his original academic subjects in favor of academy subjects such as history and mathematics, and had decided to just keep him sharp on what he already knew, but to not teach him anything new in those areas.

After the six months of endurance training, Naruto did have more stamina, but he was a little rusty in some areas, namely taijutsu on account of the extreme amount of strain that the pain training caused. So instead of really getting anything new done in those few months between his demonstration in the Hokage's office, and the start of the academy Naruto focused mainly on learning some ninjutsu, and getting back up to snuff with his taijutsu. He had, however, mastered water walking by the time the academy started, and thus those three months were not completely spent on getting back in shape. Physically at least.

The mental strain caused by the amount of pain he had endured on a daily basis for over 180 days was a different story. Since he was going to be interacting with other children his age, they had to educate him in the lost (to Naruto) art of interacting with one's peers. This was not something either of his senseis were particularly good at, but they did have an excellent working knowledge of what not to do, and through this Naruto inferred a few things that he could do with people his own age.

He could not practice [Flesh] style on his peers. He could spar. He was not to 'mindfuck' his classmates. He could provide peer counseling (with consent). He was not to go out of his way to terrify his classmates. He could smile at them. Above all though, he was not to kill them without provocation, though he could play insanely brutal pranks on them.

The academy was meant to socially re-educate Naruto, to stabilize him after all the all he had been through. This was to work out well. Mostly.

* * *

**The Academy, Three Months after the end of endurance training (One Year over all)**

When the first day of the academy rolled around, Naruto was up bright and early. He had changed his wardrobe since he first started training. Gone was the copious amounts of orange, instead he wore a black duster coat with orange trim, a pair of boots because he was rather fond of his toes, a simple pair of leather fingerless gloves, a forest green shirt (Ibiki had insisted on this), and grey fatigue pants. The only thing that marked him as the same small, rather malnourished child from a year ago was the whisker marks and the blonde hair. He carried himself differently, he had grown taller (since he had started eating right, he had grown a lot) now he was slightly above average height for someone his age, and he was rather fit, with little fat on his body.

He was a far cry from the miserable child he had been a year ago; now he was physically strong, mentally strong, and wore a hardened expression that did not belong on the face of one so young. There was very little the villagers could do to him that he hadn't already experienced and so he walked with his back straight, and a determined smile on his face. He returned the glares of the few villagers who were up at this hour with the confident ease of someone who knows how much pain they can readily inflict upon someone, and made his way to the academy.

He arrived at seven A.M. a few minutes before his sensei, Umino Iruka, arrived. He engaged him in polite conversation, and found out that classes were to start at eight. After about half an hour other students began to file in. The first of which was a pink haired girl he immediately disliked, in his mind he categorized her as soft and easily broken. Close behind her was a blonde haired girl, who appeared to be rather… enthusiastic about being there. He put her in to the category of slightly less soft. After her was a trio of males. One had the clan-markings of the Inuzuka on his face, making him fall in to the category of slightly harder to break. The second boy had the girth of an Akimichi, making him breakable as soon as he was separated from food. The last boy had the bleary eyed, disinterested look of the Nara clan on his face. If Naruto had to interrogate him, he would liably get as much information out of the Nara as he got out of him. He went on the list of potential acquaintances. Next was a rather shy looking Hyuuga whom he vaguely remembered from somewhere. Ibiki-sensei had once told him not to mess with the Hyuugas, so she went on his list of people to befriend as well. Right behind the Hyuuga was a pale boy in a large, high-collared coat wearing glasses. He looked to be an Aburame, he could be dangerous. The last person of note was an Uchiha who looked like he styled his hair to look like a duck's hindquarters. Naruto immediately disliked the boy, and decided that if he was ever the subject of an interrogation he would beg Ibiki to let him do the honors.

Eight came and went, and he found out from the role call that the Nara boy's name was Shikamaru, the Akimichi was Choji, the Hyuuga was Hinata, the other blonde was Yamanaka Ino (the reason he hadn't recognized her was that she wasn't with the Nara and the Akimichi), and the Aburame's name was Shino. He still didn't care what the pink haired girl's name was, and the Uchiha's name was Sauce-Keg or something like that.

After role, Iruka proceeded to lecture them on history and mathematics and the like, and Naruto zoned out seeing as he had already studied these things rather thoroughly over the course of the three months between the end of his endurance training and the beginning of the academy. Iruka called on him once, and he just stared at him like he was doing something worthy of his un-ending ire, and then calmly stated the whole answer, touching on every different interpretation that could reasonably be expected to be given. He then continued to zone, thinking of different ways to strip the flesh from the human form, or contort bodies in ever more painful ways. Occasionally he would let out a slightly bored sigh, or rather disconcerting giggle, but otherwise he sat in silence.

Around noontime they broke for lunch. Naruto ate his fare, climbed a tree, and sat there until the Nara asked him to come down.

"Why should I?" Naruto called back down, a smile of sorts on his face.

"Because it would be troublesome to climb up the tree and pull you out." Nara lazily said back. He looked about as bored as Naruto did.

"But why do you want me to come down? Huh? No one wants me to do anything with them." Naruto said back. He was beginning to get interested in the conversation. The boy may be bored, but he definitely wasn't boring.

"Come down and I'll tell you." The Nara said. He was holding on to his information to use as a bargaining chip. A rather commendable tactic for one so young.

"Fine then, but you better have a good reason for getting me out of this tree. I really like it up here." He stated as he jumped down from the tree, bending his knees as he hit the ground, then standing up straight. "Now what do you want?"

"Let's go watch clouds. All these people are troublesome. Except you. You're quiet." He said, with a lazy sort of almost smile. He turned around, and walked off.

Naruto followed him, seeing as he thought that the Nara—Shikamaru—was worth knowing. They walked off to an open spot, sat down, and turned their eyes toward the sky to watch the clouds.

"That one looks like a thumbscrew." Naruto said, pointing to a cloud. "And that one looks like an iron maiden," he pointed at another. Shikamaru chuckled.

He pointed out a cloud, "That one looks like an apple." He pointed out another, "And that other one looks like a kunai. The one next to it is too troublesome to identify." He pointed to a rather odd looking cloud that was vaguely familiar, but neither of them could readily identify the shape.

They spent the rest of the lunch period like that until the nameless pink-haired girl came to retrieve them for throwing practice and the taijutsu class. The other instructor, Mizuki, paired Naruto with Sauce-face (or whatever the hell his name was) for the sparring session (probably trying to sabotage Naruto's confidence on the first day. He obviously doesn't know him very well.). Naruto took a rather comfortable stance, with one hand in a loose fist, the other hand he left open, so he could grab Sauce-face's arm and peel the skin off of it if he got the chance. His style centered mainly around making contact to channel [Flesh] chakra into his opponent. He didn't so much care about the strength of his individual hits as much as he cared about just landing as many hits as possible to kill through superficial wounds…. Wait one of the rules he was supposed to follow was not to kill a classmate without provocation….

While Naruto was contemplating all that, Gay-sauce got bored with waiting for him to strike first and charged at him. At the last second, Naruto channeled [Flesh] chakra into his foot, caught Sauce-duck's arm in his open hand, pulled him forward, and kicked him in the back of his left calf. He cringed at the transfer of the flesh chakra, but the effects were instantaneous and well worth it.

Sauce-pan's lower left leg became an atrophied twig at the touch of Naruto's foot, he stumbled as he tried to keep moving, but his now incredibly weak leg would no longer hold his weight. He fell flat on his face and Naruto placed his foot in the small of his back. "Submit" He demanded, scowling at the boy who wore a duck's ass on his head.

"No! I won't lose to some clanless nobody like you! I can't!" He yelled back. His voice was slightly muted since his face was pressed in to the dirt, but Naruto could hear the arrogance, scorn, and even mild disbelief in his voice as he said his piece.

"Very well," Naruto said with ice in his voice. He channeled [Flesh] chakra in to his foot and grit his teeth at the pain of the transfer of energy. Small cuts began to open in his back, as Naruto channeled the chakra in to Sauce-boy's back. Soon after he started, the back of his shirt was soaked in blood. He removed his foot from the Sauce-fag's back and called over to Iruka, "Sensei, Sauce-jam needs to go to the infirmary. He hurt himself while we were sparring."

Iruka walked over and saw the slowly expanding pool of blood around Sasuke. "What happened?" He asked Naruto, a rather concerned and confused look gracing his face, making him look like someone that would be easy to break in an interrogation room. Iruka glanced over at Naruto and spotted the appraising look on his face. "What? What are you looking at?"

"I'm sizing you up." Naruto answered. "Sauce-ass tripped and hurt himself." He partially lied. He turned around and walked off towards the rest of the students. Some of them were looking at him in awe, others were sending hateful looks his way, all were impressed that the boy none of them had ever met before had beat Sasuke on the first day of the academy. It was unheard of for the Uchiha brat to be bested so soundly, with so little effort. If Sasuke could even remember the barest hint of what happened that afternoon, he was bound to hold some kind of grudge. Naruto expected, nay, looked forward to it. It would make life interesting.

* * *

As Naruto was leaving, he bumped into the Hyuuga girl. He stumbled a bit, and then apologised. "I'm sorry… Hinata?" She nodded her head. "I'll watch where I'm going next time. See you tomorrow. I'm going to get something to eat." He told her as he walked off towards Ichiraku Ramen.

"Teuchi-ojisan! I want four bowls of beef ramen to go!" Naruto shouted as he entered the stand. He sat down and proceeded to wait for his order.

Ayame walked out, and looked around for a moment. She perked up when she spotted her favorite blonde-haired child and walked on over to the boy. "Naruto-kun! You're ordering take out today?" she asked with a broad smile on her face.

"Yeah. I'm going to go get some dango and have a picnic this evening. Gonna go to my spot, and enjoy myself." He said with a grin. "Today is an important day for me. I beat an arrogant asshole in a fight this afternoon!"

"Really? Who?" Ayame asked. "Did he try to beat you up? Were you defending someone?" Ayame looked at him expectantly.

"Yeah, we were sparring at the Academy and I was paired with this Uchiha faggot and I beat the crap out of him. It was satisfying seeing him squirm at the end, but then he stopped moving and got really quiet—don't worry I didn't kill him." He paused, "I made sure not to kill him. If I did, then I wouldn't be able to have fun with him in the future."

"Your definition of 'fun' has changed a lot over this past year, hasn't it Naruto-kun?" Ayame asked, with a look of concern on her face.

"Aye, that it has." He stated grimly, he looked up and saw Teuchi walking out with his order. "There's my order. Here's what I owe you." Naruto put a few bills on the counter, grabbed his bag and left for the dango shop.

* * *

Half an hour later he had purchased his dango and gone to the Yondaime Hokage's head to sit down with his meal. When he arrived there, Ibiki was already waiting for him.

"Ibiki-niisan, did you hear about what I did today?" Naruto asked rather enthusiastically. He had a broad smile on his face that now only ever appeared when he was around Ibiki or Anko.

"No, I didn't Naruto-kun, but I bet you're going to tell me." Ibiki said. He actually wanted to hear about the kids day, the boy had a brought a little bit of light in to his rather bleak life, and it saddened him that he darkened Naruto's in a similar fashion. In a word, it was depressing.

Naruto recounted the events of the day to Ibiki, going in to great detail about how he thought each of his classmates would fare in an interrogation room, then he talked about how he had become friends (sort of) with Shikamaru. Then he got to his fight with Uchiha Sousaphone. "It was child's play, Ibiki-niisan, the boy rushed me, leaving himself open to my counter attack. I disabled his left leg, placed my foot in the small of his back and asked him if he would surrender." Naruto paused and donned a rather sadistic grin, "He refused, so I channeled some [Flesh] chakra in to his back and gave him something to remember me by."

Ibiki grinned. "Sounds like an eventful first day. I'm glad you beat the crap out of that Uchiha, he's had it coming for a long time. That arrogant ass; I much preferred his brother." Ibiki grinned, knowing exactly how to get to the 'Last Uchiha.' Neither of them rightly gave a rat's hindquarters whether or not Sauce-name lived or died. "Eat up, we need to head home, I have a nasty feeling that somebody cares that you beat the crap out of that arrogant ass."

* * *

**Council Room, Hokage Tower, 2 hours later**

"The demon child brutalized the last Uchiha! He should be put down like the animal he is!" one of the civilian councilors screamed. He was red in the face, and looked like he was about ready to have a heart attack. Ibiki looked at him and released a burst of precision killer intent, while the Hokage gave him a look of shock. Naruto looked at the offending civilian and gave him a warm smile; the very picture of innocence.

The Hokage knew that Naruto was aware of the Kyuubi, but it wouldn't due to stop enforcing his laws now. "Naruto, disregard that man's comment. He is just yet another one of the idiotic villagers that harbors misbegotten hatred towards you." He turned to the councilman, "As for you, I'm making you an appointment with Ibiki-san so you can 'talk' about your 'feelings.'"

The councilman blanched, then turned to take a look at the boy and his guardian. Neither one of them looked like the type of person you could cross without severe repercussions; one of them was just a child. _"I chose a fine role model for the boy, he will make an effective weapon someday, and a fine citizen of Konoha." _The Hokage thought. _"Now to business."_

The Hokage called for silence, "Sasuke was sparring with Naruto. People get hurt when they spar. This is in no way different from any other incident of this fashion; things like this happen all the time with academy students. This just shows the quality of Naruto's training, and his teachers." He nodded at Ibiki.

The civilians were outraged at this. One of them, another pink haired female that bore a striking resemblance to the one from the academy, was especially pissed off by this sentiment. "How can some clanless child defeat the Uchiha heir? This is impossible, he must have cheated somehow! He should be removed from the academy and executed for even touching Sasuke!"

The shinobi council expressed their displeasure with waves of rolling killer intent. The civilians all froze, one even voided his bladder. When all the grumbling died down, one of the clan heads, Hyuuga Hiashi, spoke up. "I move that we end the meeting on the grounds that it should have never occurred in the first place."

"Seconded!" Inuzuka Tsume called out.

"All in favor?" The Hokage queried. All the shinobi in the room rose their hands. "All opposed?" The civilians raised their hands. "I will break the tie then. I vote to adjourn the meeting. The meeting is adjourned. Goodnight." The Hokage got up and walked out before anyone could voice their dissent, gesturing at Ibiki and Naruto to follow him out. After they were a safe distance away from the council room Hiruzen smiled. "That went well, I think."

Naruto and Ibiki nodded, "About as well as we could've expected it to go." Ibiki stated.

"We shall proceed as planned then?" Naruto asked, a mischievous look in his eye.

"Aye, Naruto-kun, we proceed with the plan. Don't draw any more attention to yourself, but make them know that what happened today was not a freak occurrence." The Hokage stated, he had a more thoughtful look on his face. "Just keep your [Flesh Style] under wraps. We don't want word to get out about it. There are enough assassins after you as it is. We don't need the other villages to bolster their ranks with kidnappers."

"Yes Hokage-sama." Naruto bowed, and the trio parted ways. Naruto and Ibiki headed off towards their apartment, while the Hokage went to his office to review the plan and spend some time with his favorite orange book.

* * *

**Accelerated Time**

Over the course of his Academy years, Naruto quietly excelled. He did well enough in his classes, making sure that he never left the upper end of average by purposefully screwing up at the ninjutsu and academic tests but always allowing himself to shine in taijutsu.

As time progressed, he actually became friends with Shikamaru and Hinata, mostly because he actually made an effort to socialize with the two of them. The three of them would eat together, train together and spend time together outside of the Academy. Ibiki became friends with Nara Shikaku, and became acquainted with Hyuuga Hiashi, mostly so he could assure them that Naruto was not a threat to their children.

Naruto proceeded with the Hokage's plans as well. He gathered information on his classmates, gauging their strengths, weaknesses, and mental state, for the ultimate goal of who they would be paired off with when it came to team selections, and which jonin-senseis would get each team. It was a good plan, a smart plan, and only a small component of the Hokage's over-arching grand plan.

Regardless, time continued to march on and as Naruto grew socially and mentally, he also grew physically. Although he did not change his wardrobe, over the course of his academy years he grew out of three duster coats. By the end of his academy years, he was about 5' even and he had filled out pretty well. He had developed a few good ways to utilize his [Flesh Style] like his [Precision Necrosis] technique which literally rotted the flesh off of the affected part of the body, or his [Skin Peeling] technique which literally peeled the skin off of a person leaving the muscle, bone, and blood vessels behind it.

He had made incredible progress in mastering his original [Flesh Style] technique which he had named [Flesh Turning]. He could now reverse the process, and partially turn people inside out as well. It was, however, incredibly painful and it was not something he could do often.

The academy did a lot of good for Naruto, and, to his dismay, it was over seemingly before it started.

* * *

**The Academy, 4 years later, The day of the Genin Exam**

Naruto arrived early for the exam, prepared for what was to come that evening. He had it planned out so that he would do well, but nowhere near the top of the class. The written portion he would go out of the way to screw up on, he planned on winning his bout for the taijutsu portion, and the ninjutsu portion… well he would be fine as long as they let him use the Kage Bunshin instead of the regular bunshin.

Confident as he was, he still had a nagging feeling that something unpleasant was going to happen that the evening. He knew that he would graduate that day, there was no way the old man wouldn't let him, but he knew that the day wasn't going to be over when he got his hitai-ate.

He was shaken from his reverie by Iruka calling for silence. He handed out the test and told them to begin. The test was not particularly difficult, complex mathematics, historical analysis, and the like. He breezed through it, purposefully missing more a few questions so that he would not have the top score on, and to draw attention away from himself.

When everyone was finished with the written exam, Iruka and Mizuki collected the tests and tallied the results. Naruto was sixth in the class, and comfortably satisfied with that outcome. When the Uchiha found out that Naruto wasn't dead last he was seething, and when he went to Iruka and accused him of cheating he chuckled. Iruka laughed him off and told him that Naruto probably would have done better had he actually tried.

They broke for lunch, and then they had the taijutsu bouts. Naruto was paired up with a young boy named Ranex Orichar, and their bout was the first.

They bowed to each other and assumed their respective ready stances. Naruto took his signature stance, while Orichar assumed the basic academy style stance. Naruto remembered what the Hokage had told him the night before. _"If the old man wants me to cut loose today, who am I not to?" _he thought. He looked up at Orichar, who was waiting for Naruto to attack first and flashed a sadistic grin.

Naruto ran at his opponent channeling minute amounts of chakra in to his hands. As he neared Ranex Orichar, he opened both of his hands, and rapidly struck his arms: once in the wrist, once at the elbow, and once at the shoulder. Orichar barely felt the strikes, and could not detect the minute amounts of chakra sitting on top of his skin.

He lashed out at Naruto who took the flurry of blows without flinching. When there was a pause in the barrage of strikes he jumped back, locked his jaw, and started going through hand seals, ending with the ram. "[Flesh Style]: [Precision Necrosis]" he yelled, as his opponent was about to strike him again. Naruto allowed the blow to connect, and then waited.

In the meantime, Iruka, Mizuki, and the rest of the students looked on in confusion, some laughing, others wondering what Naruto had planned, but they all had one thing in common. None of them had ever heard of this [Flesh Style] that Naruto was using.

About a minute or so later, Ranex Orichar started screaming clutching his arms in pain. Iruka called the match, declaring Naruto the winner. As they got Ranex Orichar off of the ground, they saw slowly expanding patches of necrotic flesh on his arms.

Naruto let out a sigh of relief, and ended the jutsu. "Here, let me fix this." He said as he channeled chakra into his palms. He ran his hands over the necrotic flesh and pulled the remaining [Flesh] chakra from the boy's body, healing his arms as he did so. "That should do it, his arms should be as good as they were before the match."

His classmates looked on in horror as Naruto acted as if nothing happened. Naruto smiled, and walked off to sit down and watch the rest of the matches. Shikamaru and Hinata both soundly trounced their opponents, as did Sauce-jar and the rest of the more prominent member of their class.

They moved on to the ninjutsu portion, and as they moved down the list, Naruto waited for his name to be called in a patient manner. Shikamaru and Hinata both passed with flying colors, and all the people the he thought would pass did. When the Uchiha was called Naruto began to prepare himself for his turn in the room. He had already made arrangements to substitute the Kage Bunshin for the basic academy Bunshin, so he would have no trouble there, Iruka had also agreed to fix his scores so they would be slightly less than perfect for the ninjutsu exam too, so all he had to do was wait for his name to be called.

He didn't have to wait for long, as the Uchiha came out with a self-satisfied smirk on his face and said "Beat that dobe." He was obviously confident that he would be top of the class, but Naruto didn't care. He walked in a moment later when they called his name.

"Alright Naruto, henge in to… that chair." Iruka ordered. He pointed out a chair sitting off in one of the corners. Naruto complied and turned in to an exact replica of the chair. "Okay, your henge is good. Now do the Kawarimi." Naruto did the hand seals for the kawarimi, and substituted Iruka for himself.

"_Alright, I knew he was going to be fine for those two, as long as he still fails the bunshin, my plan can continue without any changes." _Mizuki thought, he grinned a bit.

"Alright Naruto, as we discussed you may substitute Kage Bunshin for the Bunshin. If you would kindly do it now." Iruka said. Naruto made the hand seals for the Kage Bunshin and executed the jutsu; thirteen perfectly formed Narutos appeared around the room. Mizuki was flabbergasted.

"Perfect Naruto, You pass. Here is your hitai-ate." Iruka handed him a hitai-ate on a black cloth.

"Thank you Iruka-sensei, Mizuki-sensei." Naruto said as he nodded to them both. He tied his hitai-ate around his head and wore it like a dew rag. After donning his hitai-ate he left the room and sat down in his seat.

Once Ino had gone, the exams were over and all the students went out to meet their families. Ibiki was off to one side talking to Hiashi and Shikaku about various things. When the trio saw them come out, each wearing a hitai-ate in their chosen fashion, they paused their conversation to congratulate their respective charges.

"You look good kid. Being a ninja suits you." Ibiki said as he shook Naruto's hand. He looked the kid over and was satisfied with his appearance. Shikaku and Hiashi and similar interactions with their children, although Hiashi was more could with his pride, and Shiaku said something about troublesome young shinobi.

"Hey, Ibiki-niisan, let's go see Hokage-ji. He'll be glad to know I graduated." Naruto said, with feigned excitement. He turned to his two friends from the academy, "See you guys at the team assignments."

"Yeah, actually, we should go see the Hokage." Ibiki said. He turned from his two associates and then proceeded after his charge who was already well on his way to the Hokage Tower.

* * *

"Congratulations on making genin Naruto-kun, to what do I owe this visit?" The Hokage asked as Naruto and Ibiki entered his office.

"I think that Mizuki-san is up to something, Hokage-ji. When I passed the Genin Exam this afternoon he looked as if it was the end of the world." Naruto stated.

"Are you sure?" The Hokage asked.

"Yes. Let me tail him for the rest of the day. That way we will know for sure." Naruto requested.

"Very well, Naruto-kun." The Hokage said, "Ibiki-san, you are okay with this?" He nodded an affirmative. "Naruto, I assign you your first mission. I will decide the missions upon its completion. You are dismissed.

* * *

**A forest clearing on the outskirts of Konoha, That Night**

Just as Naruto had suspected, Mizuki had been planning something. Earlier that night Mizuki had broken in to the Hokage Tower and stole the forbidden scroll. Naruto had followed him from the tower to the clearing where he now sat with the scroll trying to learn the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. He decided to scare the poor guy.

Ever so quietly he walked up behind the man, and as soon as he was close enough he poked him in the back of the head. "Hey, Mizuki-sensei, if you wanted to learn the Kage Bunshin you just asked me and I would've taught you." Naruto said, rather kindly; though on his face there was a terrifying sadistic grin.

Mizuki turned around. "You! The demon fox child! You ruined my plans. You were supposed to steal the scroll and I was supposed to kill you and bring it back. I would have been a hero!" The man raged. He took a fuma shuriken off of his back and began to wind it up for his throw, "But it doesn't matter now. You're going to die and I'm going to take the forbidden scroll and become a missing nin!" He let the giant shuriken fly at Naruto, and watched in delight as it caught the boy in the abdomen.

Unphased, Naruto formed half of the ram seal and placed his hand on Mizuki's shoulder. _"Since I am already in pain, this should be all the more effective."_ Naruto thought. "[Flesh Style]: [Partial Flesh Turning]!" Naruto shouted as he channeled the [Flesh] chakra in to Mizuki's body. His arms and legs split and then turned inside out as the technique did its work. When it was finished, Mizuki's arms and legs had disappeared into four fleshy holes, two where his legs used to be, and two in place of his arms. Then he started screaming.

"Ibiki-niisan, I need to get this looked at." Naruto called out. "Can you bring Mizuki and the scroll to the Hokage's office?"

Ibiki shunshined in to the clearing just in time to see Naruto collapse.

**End Chapter Two**

* * *

AN: And that's chapter two. I apologize if you didn't like it, and if you did like it then thank you. All I have to say is that exposition is wholly necessary. Chapter three will be better. By the time I have it written I will have some jutsus that are more fair to other people for Naruto. If chapter three turns out anything like chapter two I should get through team selections, the _real _genin exams, and the beginning of my wave arc. I am open to suggestions for jutsu names, and whole jutsus and I am still looking for a beta. Chapter three might be a bit later, because I'm actually going to plan out my deviations from canon, but I will get it written as soon as possible because frankly I want to know what happens next too. Just between you and me, a lot of this stuff is written on the fly. Hehehehehehehehe.

Anyhow thanks for reading, please review, and contact me if you're interested in betaing.

Thank you,

E E Merica

P.S. I promise that it will get better, it's just I wanted to get through all the exposition in one chapter. I promise there will be seas of gore and wading in the aforementioned seas in the next chapter. Or at least a couple of good action scenes.


	3. Chapter 3: What's This About Plans?

AN: Hello again! I'm going to try and keep my in story 'AN:'s to a minimum, I'll put them in when they are necessary to explain something that I'm doing (like the one below), though never if its with my twisted, demented plotlines, elsewise Dr. EE and Minion Merica are off stage and you only get to listen to **THE BOSS! ***sad face* T-T

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any related copyrights, trademarks, properties, or characters. I am in no way profiting from this literary venture except from the comments and reviews that I receive, which will only help me improve my writing. Special for this chapter: I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean, or anything else that might throw up a Disney flag. And I don't own anything related to GamesWorkshop or the Black Library either

_Claimer: I own Dr. EE, Minion Merica, as well as all iterations of the OC Ranex Orichar. And I own the [Flesh Style] as well. So please, don't rip any of these off. Or I will find you. Unless you ask for my express permission first, then it might be okay. The concept belongs to me._

"Speech"

"Thoughts"

"Non-human speech"

_**"Non-human thoughts"**_

_**AN: Just to clarify, I'm using third person omniscient for flexibility, especially when I'm not following the actions of a specific character. So yeah, just to prevent confusion, it will be clear when my narrator is just sitting in the head of a specific character though. I hope.**_

* * *

**Konoha Hospital, The Morning After**

Naruto lay in the hospital bed, recovering from his wounds. The blade of the shuriken had nearly pierced his spinal column and if it weren't for the regenerative powers of the nine-tailed fox he'd probably be a paraplegic right about now. As it was, he wouldn't be out of the hospital for at least another day, and team selections had been postponed pending his recovery.

Naruto didn't know any of this though. He was still out cold from his wounds. Exertion, wear and tear from the use of his bloodline (which actually seemed to have exasperated the wound), and blood loss had rendered him unconscious and he had yet to wake up. He had a few select people worried sick, not that he knew. He was otherwise occupied recovering from his injuries, and he was probably getting his ass chewed out by the Kyuubi.

Anko was about as aware of his predicament as he was of the stress he was causing her, and so she was sitting there suppressing tears waiting for him to wake up, knowing he would but not being able to push away that tiny nagging feeling that this time he wouldn't. She knew he healed incredibly well, and she knew he was one tough son-of-a-bitch, the training and his situation had seen to that, but still she couldn't help but worry. He was like a younger brother to her; she had always been there to support him, and he had done the same for her. Yet she felt that she had failed him somehow in this situation, that if she had been there he wouldn't have been hurt.

Hell, this was how she felt every time the kid got hurt, well at least since the incident with the…. _"Wait, is the kid waking up? Oh shit, he is!"_ She stood up and walked over to the bed. "Hey kid, how ya doing?"

Naruto looked up and saw Anko, he smiled, "I'm alive." He attempted to sit up, and though it did hurt, it wasn't enough to keep him down. He'd been through worse, much worse and he had never let it keep him down before. He wasn't going to start now. "And that's better off than a lot of people."

Anko smiled, and scooped up the boy into a crushing (doubly so) embrace. "Don't you ever let this sort of thing happen again!" squeeze, "You were just short of paralysis!" squeeze, "In the amount of time you were there Mizuki could have been dead five times over if you had taken the situation at all seriously!" squeeze.

"Anko-chan," Naruto gasped, his voice barely escaped her considerable assets, "I can't breathe." Despite the lack of oxygen, his face was rather flushed.

"Shut-up, you know you like it." She grinned as she released him from the prison (yeah, right) of her cleavage. "I know you hate the hospital, so why didn't you just kill him and save yourself the trouble of a stint in here?"

"Dead men tell no tales." Naruto replied, he looked at her like it was the most obvious thing ever. "We can't interrogate the dead, and Mizuki probably had a good reason for his actions."

Anko shook her head, then handed him a backpack. "Get dressed, I'll go arrange your discharge. The sooner we get you out the sooner you can fix that hole in your gut."

"They're letting me leave already? Usually they try and make me wait about a day before you guys force my discharge papers through." Naruto was incredulous at this.

"Yup, the Hokage wanted you out as soon as possible so he wouldn't have to delay team selections." Anko said as she walked out of the room. "Now get dressed!"

* * *

Fifteen minutes later saw Naruto dressed in his usual attire plus the newly earned hitai-ate and Anko munching on some dango that she had bought somewhere. They were on their way to the Hokage tower; Naruto still needed to deliver his report on the events of the night before, and the Hokage always liked to see him after a stint in the hospital.

A goodly portion of the glares he would usually receive had been replaced by looks of fear and awe, likely due to the fact that he was now a shinobi and therefore allowed to defend himself with lethal force if attacked. He had no qualms about killing, although that was not common knowledge. He had only killed three times before, twice in self-defense and once in anger (and self-defense) and each time he had taken their skulls. He didn't understand why he had to take the skulls, but the Kyuubi had said that it was important for him to do so, and nothing it had said concerning the [Flesh Style] had proved wrong yet, so he went along with it. Besides, it was cool to have a pile of skulls sitting in the corner. Something about a skull throne…

In any case, they had just arrived at the Hokage tower, so he set aside the plans for his skull-chair in favor of ordering his thoughts for his report to the Hokage. They walked up to the doors, paused for a moment, and the pair burst through the doors, completely oblivious to their surroundings.

"Hokage-ji, I'm here to give my report on the events of…." Naruto noticed the gaggle of jonin standing in the room and bowed, not the slightest bit embarrassed (he knew the Hokage would rather hear from him than deal with these jonin, well most likely anyway) but he knew when to be apologetic, "Excuse me Hokage-sama, I'll take my leave and give my report after you are done with these jonin."

As Naruto and Anko turned to leave the room, the Hokage called after them "Wait. Naruto-san, you can go ahead and give your report now, this is just team assignments. It's important, but not as important as dealing with a traitor." He looked back to the jonin, "None of you leave. This will only take a few minutes."

Naruto gave his report detailing the altercation with Mizuki, everything he heard, said and did, and how he had taken the fuma shuriken to the gut and then used [Flesh Style]: [Partial Flesh Turning] on Mizuki to immobilize him, well aside from the gnashing of teeth and howling in pain, "Then I told Ibiki-sensei to bring you the forbidden scroll and Mizuki and I fell unconscious. I don't know how I got to the hospital." Naruto finished.

"Actually, Ibiki-san sealed Mizuki and the forbidden scroll in to those special sealing scrolls that you made, then carried you to the hospital before dropping these off here." The Hokage explained, then he held up a pair of scrolls. "Here's Mizuki, Ibiki-san asked me to have you deliver him to T&I pending your report." The Hokage motioned for Naruto to come forward and handed him the scroll marked 'prisoner.' "Make him suffer some more, eh Naruto-kun?"

"Yes Hokage-sama." Naruto said as he bowed, then left the room.

"Hokage-sama" Anko said as she followed suit.

* * *

"You're trusting a genin with the transport of a dangerous criminal? Hokage-sama, I mean no disrespect, but have you gone mad?" One of the less distinguished jonin questioned, not knowing his place, or the identity of the genin. "I understand not trusting the snake-bitch with him, but a genin?" He paused once he realized that the other jonin in the room were making motions for him to shut up before he said something even more stupid than he already had. He heeded their warnings and quit while he still had a head.

"That genin has been personally trained by both Morino Ibiki and Mitarashi Anko. I think he can be trusted." The Hokage raised a hand to silence the wave of questions from the people who weren't already aware of the Jinchuriki's situation. "The only thing I find off putting about Uzumaki Naruto is an S-class secret, and it isn't the one you're all thinking of." He let that sink in before changing the subject (And now for something completely different), "Back to the business at hand, Kakashi-san I do believe I was getting to your genin squad. I know you had requested Uzumaki Naruto (okay not completely different), and so, against my better judgement, I am assigning you Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, and Haruno Sakura. Any issues that arise from the team dynamics are your problem."

"Yes Hokage-sama, I will try to make sure they don't kill each other. Or get each other killed." Kakashi said, his nose was still in his little orange book of eroticisms. "It's not like they are going to pass or anything, so it doesn't really matter."

"Moving on, Kurenai-san, your team, team eight will be made up of Hyuuga Hinata, Aburame Shino, and Inuzuka Kiba. If all goes well, then you should have a fine team there." The Hokage stated.

"Yes, Hokage-sama. I will train them to the best of my abilities." Kurenai said, and then bowed. _"At least I don't have to worry about Naruto. If anything happened to him, well it's Kakashi's problem, not mine."_ She mused.

"And finally, Asuma-kun, team ten will be made up of Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Choji, and Nara Shikamaru." The Hokage stated.

"Very well, Hokage-sama." Asuma nodded.

"You all have your team assignments, you are dismissed. Go and plan your trials." The Hokage turned his chair away from the room full of jonin and they all left.

* * *

**T&I, Thirty minutes later**

"Ibiki-sensei! I have Mizuki! What do you want me to do with him?" Naruto asked as he entered Ibiki's office. His office (like his apartment) was rather spartan, and it was also painted forest green. He insisted that was the color that it was painted when he came in to possession of the office, but Naruto was pretty sure that Ibiki was just rather partial to the color.

"Naruto-kun, you're awake. Excellent!" Ibiki stood up from his desk and walked over to the pair. He took the scroll from Naruto then looked over at Anko, "Anko-san, I trust you didn't have any trouble forcing his discharge?"

"Actually no, the Hokage had made arrangements before-hand. The doctors informed me thusly when I went to see him. It was actually just a matter of signing a few papers waiving his right to sue them if he came to injury because he had yet to recover. Nothing important." Anko stated. "The important thing is that he's safe…. Well safe enough anyway."

"So what happens now? Do I just go home, and sleep the rest of this off, or do you want me to interrogate Mizuki?" Naruto asked. Either way would be fine by him, he was rather tired after all, and he still had a sizable gash in his abdomen that needed healing. It was much easier to regenerate when he was sleeping than when he was awake (read it didn't hurt when he was sleeping).

"Hell, judging by what I saw last night he's already scared shitless of you Naruto-kun, why don't you go ahead and do the preliminary interrogation with him. I can send Inoichi in to check your work. Besides you've earned it." Ibiki said, "I'll go prep a room and unseal (AN: specially made custom sealing scrolls, they will be explained in due time when I have them figured out completely. Suffice it to say that you can seal people in them in a form of suspended animation. This is not up for discussion, and WILL be explained in due time) him. I'll come get you when its time."

"Yes Ibiki-sensei." Naruto said, as he and Anko sat down in the various chairs scattered about the room.

* * *

Ibiki walked in on a poker game, Naruto appeared to be winning judging by the sizable amount of money on the table, more than he got every month. Anko appeared to be about as bad at gambling as Tsunade herself.

Ibiki cleared his throat, and gained the attention of the duo. "You can finish your game now, before you're ruined financially Anko-san. Naruto-kun, you have an interrogation to conduct."

"Right, lead the way." Naruto said as he stood up and pocketed his winnings. He followed Ibiki out of the room and in to the hall that lead to the interrogation rooms. They stopped at one of the more 'luxurious' rooms. This room had an iron maiden, a rack, a cage suspended in the air with naught but a few bars for a bottom, and all kinds of other implements of torture. Mizuki was propped up in a chair; he was stil missing his arms and legs, which told Naruto that the final permanency test for the [Partial Flesh Turning] was a success. He grinned, "This is going to be fun. I hope he isn't a masochist."

"Don't kill him unless he doesn't have any useful information, this is your first real interrogation. Don't fuck it up." Ibiki advised as Naruto entered the interrogation room. _"They grow up so fast. It seems like it was only last week that I was teaching him the three lessons." _Ibiki mused to himself. He was proud of the kid, and he was damned sure of it. Now if he could just find a way to silence all the detractors who said otherwise.

* * *

Naruto entered the interrogation room with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. He walked up to his friend in the chair and smacked him to get his attention. "Rise and shine asshole! It's time for us to have some more fun together." He patted Mizuki on the head. "Anything you'd like to say before we get started?"

"I'm not going to tell you anything! The people I work for, they will do horrible things to me. More horrible than you can imagine!" He winced as he realized his mistake. One of the people he worked for was the Hokage, and Naruto was the shinobi who had done this to him. Naruto was a torturer in the Hokage's employ. Naruto was the torturer conducting his interrogation. "Wait I'll—"

Too late, by the time Mizuki opened his mouth Naruto had begun his ministrations. He placed his hand on Mizuki's forehead and began the processes of skinning his eyes. Naruto gritted his teeth. Mizuki screamed, loud and long. Naruto stopped once his subject's pupils were no longer protected by his corneas. He took the little skin plugs from his eyes and put them in his pockets.

Naruto took a senbon needle and inserted it in his subject's right eye. He slowly slid the needle into Mizuki's pupil until it was stopped by the barrier that was the lens. He then applied more pressure until he had pierced the lens and gained access to the inside cavity of Mizuki's eye. Mizuki screamed coherently now. "Stop, I'll tell you! I was taking the scroll to sell it on the black market!"

Naruto felt Mizuki attempt to roll his eyes up and to the left through the needle; he was fabricating. (AN: Eyes cross hemispheres. If you are looking to the left it means you're using your right brain, and the right brain governs creativity. Ergo, look to the left and your embellishing or making something up.) "I have a needle in your eye. I can literally feel you spinning your lies." Naruto sneered, his voice was dripping with malevolence. He jammed the needle in further and started working it around inside, rendering the inner workings of his eye completely destroyed. "Now, tell me the truth before I decide to destroy your other eye."

Mizuki was sweating. Even the slightest movement caused excruciating pain, if he tried to move his head the needle in his eye would probably pierce his brain case and lobotomize him. He couldn't struggle, his limbs were no longer usable, and trying to move them just caused more pain. He was in an untenable situation: he couldn't kill himself nor could he attempt to fight back, for there was no way for him to make hand signs, if he didn't give Naruto the information he was liable to be mind-raped anyway, and if he gave up the information his unofficial employer would destroy him, granted it wouldn't be as bad as what Naruto was doing to him, but if he gave Konoha the information he at least had a slim chance of surviving.

"Orochimaru. Orochimaru wanted me to do it. I swear! On my life!" Mizuki yelled frantically, looking for some kind of out; some kind of deal. Naruto removed the needle from his eyes and replaced the plugs from his corneas. He left Mizuki's right eye in ruins and left the room. Ibiki was waiting for him in the viewing room. "There's an execution order on him, right?"

Ibiki nodded, "Yes Naruto there is." Ibiki stated, guessing where this was going.

"Could you send in Inoichi now? Mizuki said Orochimaru is the one pulling his strings. I'd like to find out if he's telling the truth." Naruto said.

Ibiki nodded to Inoichi, "Go on in and see if he's lying." Inoichi nodded an affirmative, once he had entered the interrogation room Ibiki turned back to Naruto, "You want to perform the execution?"

Naruto nodded, "Yes, if posible I would like to carry out the execution order."

"Once Inoichi has confirmed the information you may execute him. Save the Hokage the paperwork." Ibiki said.

Naruto face darkened with malice, he smiled a cold, cruel smile. "Thank you Ibiki-sama." Naruto turned to the window and watched Inoichi do his work. It was much less interesting than what Naruto did to the people on the other side of the table, but then again Naruto had a very specialized skill set.

After fifteen minutes Inoichi returned to the viewing room. "It was Orochimaru. Mizuki was working for him against the village. Aside from that, I couldn't get anything else." Naruto and Ibiki nodded.

"Naruto, go ahead and go back in. Make it quick, it doesn't have to be clean." Ibiki ordered.

"That was what I had planned." Naruto said as he walked back into the interrogation room.

* * *

Naruto grabbed Mzuki's tongue and pulled. Hard. It came out of his mouth with a gout of blood. "Excellent. Now I won't have to listen to you scream." He placed the tongue in a tray and left it there.

Mizuki whimpered like an animal when Naruto placed his hands on either side of his skull. He was trembling when Naruto applied pressure to his head. He broke down in incoherent hysteria when he felt the chakra flowing in to his head. By the time Naruto lifted up his head there were bloody tears rolling down his face, and every time he attempted to make a sound blood laced spittle would flow from his lips. When Naruto had raised Mizuki's head sufficiently high enough his flesh started to flow off of his skull. First his hair fell out, then his eyes slipped out of their sockets. He stopped moving when his nose slipped down his face. By the time his lips fell away Mizuki was dead. Not even the considerable amount of chakra being pumped into his body could sustain him now. When Naruto yanked the skull off of the body it was clean of flesh. The brain had come out of the nasal passage in a thick grey paste about the time Mizuki had succumbed to Naruto's ministrations. The whole process had taken about four minutes and twenty seconds.

Naruto left the interrogation room admiring his prize. He had claimed his fourth skull, and he hadn't even been assigned a team yet. Ibiki looked over at him with an approving smile. "A bit messy, and irregular. But you'll learn. Next time, actually keep to what I taught you and you'll do better. All and all you did well. For a novice."

"Thank you Ibiki-sensei." Naruto said.

* * *

After making his report on the outcome of the interrogation (what was learned, and so on), Naruto went back to Ibiki's apartment ate, and then, after placing his new skull on the pile, he slept.

The next morning saw him eating breakfast and rushing out the door. He had mended his wound from his mindscape while he slept, and he was now back at one hundred percent functionality. On his way to the academy he stopped in at one of the better weapon shops and picked up a few things, you know piano wire, exploding tags, smoke bombs, that kind of stuff. He stocked up on kunai and shuriken. Although he didn't really use them much, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a ready supply of them.

He left the shop and returned the glares directed at him along the way. He had mastered conveying killer intent with just a look, and now the pansy ass villagers were suffering for all that they had put him through. He could make them faint with a look, and he was having a ball doing just that.

He was the first to arrive at the academy, as usual. He sat there thinking about the events of the past couple of days and realized that he had made his first kill as a shinobi with absolutely no problems. In fact, it had been quite exhilarating, not particularly enjoyable, but it was not an unpleasant experience either. And the feel of the blood; unforgettable!

Iruka-sensei and the other students began to arrive while Naruto was contemplating blood and skulls. He was lost in thought until he heard Iruka begin talking about the teams. He listened for his name, knowing that there was nothing he could do about the team selection, and therefore not giving a shit who was on which team.

"Team seven will consist of Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke." This was met with a shout of yes from the nameless pink-haired bitch, a what from Sauce-boy.

"Really!?" Naruto shouted, he still didn't give a shit about who was on his team, but did he have to be on the same team as the Uchiha asshole. He would have words with someone over this, and that someone was probably going to be their sensei.

"Your Jonin-sensei will be Hatake Kakashi. Team eight will consist of Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, and Aburame Shino. Your Jonin-sensei will be Yuuhi Kurenai." This was met with positive comments, negative comments, and a bit of gnashing of teeth. "Team nine is still in circulation, so team ten will consist Akimichi Choji, Nara Shikamaru, and Yamanaka Ino. Your Jonin-sensei will be Sarutobi Asuma." This was met with a similar reaction to team eight. "Alright, that's everybody. Be careful out there. Try not to get yourselves killed." Iruka said before leaving the room.

Three hours later saw everyone gone but the newly formed team seven. It had been established that Naruto and Sauced-up were not particularly fond of each other, and nameless pink-haired bitch was an idiot who did nothing but swoon over Gay-Sauce, which was completely pointless because Gay-Sauce was, quite obviously, asexual and therefore not interested in men or women (though if he did swing any direction he would probably be gay). Naruto tried not to get annoyed by the idiots around him and he was failing. Miserably.

"Yo!" someone said from the doorway, "Since you guys are the only people left, you two," he said while pointing at the Uchiha and pinky-bitch, "Must be my cute little students, and you," he pointed at Naruto, "Must be Ibiki's protégé. I look forward to working with you. Now if you guys would kindly meet me on the roof, we can get started."

"Wait, you look forward to working with that clanless asshole, and not me?" Sauce-boy yelled at no one in particular. At the same time, pinky-bitch yelled words to similar effect. When they looked around they saw two swirls of leaves fluttering down to the floor. Naruto and Kakashi had both shunshined up to the roof.

* * *

By the time Naruto's counterparts arrived on the roof, he and Kakashi already had themselves comfortably situated. Kakashi motioned for the two slow children to sit down. "Tell me about yourselves. Name, hobbies, dreams for the future. I'll start. So my name is Hatake Kakashi. The only one you three who could even begin to understand any of my hobbies is Naruto, and my dreams for the future well they mostly involve a little orange book I keep in ym pocket." He pointed at pinky-bitch, "You go next."

"My name is Haruno Sakura, my hobbies involve a certain person, my dreams for future involve manipulating my way into an arranged marriage with a moneyed family." Pinky-bitch said, she blushed, "Wait, did I say that last part out loud?"

"Uchiha, you next." Kakashi said.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke, my hobby is training to kill people I hate," he glanced over at Naruto, "and my dreams for the future involve killing people I hate." Sauce-junk finished.

"Your turn Naruto." Kakashi said.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto. My hobbies are training, studying, and creating new jutsu. My dreams for the future involve T&I and making Ibiki-niisan proud." Naruto said.

Kakashi clapped his hands. "Excellent! Tomorrow we meet at training ground seven at seven o' clock. Oh, and don't eat breakfast."

"Why not?" Pinky-bitch asked.

"You'll only throw it up." Kakashi stated before he shunshined away.

As soon as Naruto saw Kakashi's swirl of leaves, he too shunshined away.

Sauce-less raged at his inability to shunshin.

* * *

**Ibiki's Apartment, The Next Morning, 6 AM**

Naruto had already been awake for two hours at six. He had not intended to wake at four, but his body clock had dictated that he do so, and to disobey one's own clock was absurd so he had promptly complied.

Right now, he was contemplating the horrors he had inflicted upon yesterday's victim, for not calling it by name dehumanized it, which in turn helped Naruto rationalize the horrors he had inflicted upon Mizuki away. What he did was not something he really wanted to think about, and in hindsight he had been unnecessarily brutal. He could have caused just as much pain with much less of a mess, and considerably less soft tissue damage had he given his actions careful consideration.

He snapped himself out of that train of thought, and came to the resolution that he would be more efficient next time, after all, killing the subject wouldn't always be an option, and he needed to be able to administer to his subjects with a gentler touch.

He stood up from the desk where he had been contemplating the paradox that was his existence, and left his bedroom to go prepare breakfast. He couldn't care less about the other two nimrods on his team, but he was going to eat. Kakashi may be a slave driver, but he had been under the tutelage of Ibiki and Anko for the better part of his life, and he was pretty sure he could handle whatever Kakashi had in store for him.

He looked in the fridge, and pulled out a couple of eggs and a flat-iron steak. He sliced the steak up and put in a skillet, and after frying it for a while he cracked the eggs in to a measuring cup, whipped them, and poured the resulting mixture of yoke and white over the steak. He let that cook for a few minutes, then removed it from heat, and smothered it in black pepper and ketchup. His breakfast consisted of that, an apple, and a cup of green tea from a pitcher of the stuff that he had brewed yesterday. Really strong, full of caffeine. Not as good as a cup of coffee but it got the job done, and that was all that really mattered.

After breakfast, he made his way to training ground seven. He arrived first, as was his want, and promptly climbed a tree to wait for his sensei. He couldn't care less about his teammates, after all they were just a couple of meat shields to him. _"That would be a wonderful jutsu," _Naruto thought, _"Taking a person, and then turning them into a pulsating wall of meat to protect myself. I'll have to try that."_

The sound of twigs breaking and loud grunting signaled the arrival of one of his teammates, the Uchiha, if the grunting actually meant anything. A few minutes later and suspicions were confirmed by a high pitched squeal, and the sound of gnashing teeth. Going by what he could hear, pinky-bitch was attempting to rape the Uchiha, and he was trying to chew off her arms and/or legs. "God damn it Sakura! Get the hell off of me you crazy broad!" The Uchiha screamed.

Naruto leaned back in the tree, _"At least I get to watch them go at it with each other until Kakashi gets here."_

* * *

**Three Hours Later, Still at training ground seven**

Kakashi appeared next to Naruto in the tree, his face hidden behind his mask and everyone's favorite little orange book. "The Hokage says initiate phase two of The Plan, I look forward to working with you Naruto." Kakashi gave Naruto one of his trademarked smile analogues, "But before that you have to pull my two 'cute' students through the bell test; shall we have at it then?"

"Let's get this over with." Naruto said as he and Kakashi dropped out of the tree. The pair landed in front of the two other members of Team Seven, who seemed a little worse for wear. Sakura was covered in bite marks, and look very pleased with herself, while the Uchiha looked disheveled and out of sorts, however it didn't appear as if his female teammate had actually succeeded in her unwanted amorous venture, because she was still alive, and the Uchiha's pants were still on.

This lead Naruto to wonder why the pinky-bitch looked so smug. Maybe she had proved a point or something. Regardless, as soon as Sasuke saw Kakashi they had separated and righted themselves. "Where were you two?" Sasuke demanded.

"Yeah, you're both three hours late!" Sakura added in support of the love of her life.

Kakashi just grinned behind his mask. "I had a meeting with the Hokage, and I would imagine Naruto's been here the whole time. That doesn't matter though." Kakashi paused, "Because I am administering the real genin exam right now."

Sasuke and Sakura responded with a resounding WTF. Naruto had expected additional tests before his team actually started taking missions. Kakashi proceeded to explain the intricacies of the bell test to his students: how if they couldn't get the bells by noon all three of them were going to back to the academy, one of them must fail, and that the ones who did get bells were to get lunch.

Sasuke and Sakura took this pretty much at face value, happy to be rid of Naruto if they passed, Naruto, however knew that there was some other purpose to this test because all of the genin cells in circulation were three man squads plus jonin-sensei, however he did not have time enough to determine the true meaning of the test before Kakashi told them to begin.

Sakura and Sasuke immediately dashed away into the trees, while Naruto stood there thinking for a bit on what he should do. The most obvious way for him to get a bell, incapacitating Kakashi by disabling his limbs, was out; he was good, but he couldn't best a Jonin on his own without revealing certain things that he didn't quite want to reveal. Just to be sure, Naruto called out to Kakashi.

"Kakashi-sensei, it's better if I don't kill you, right?" Naruto asked.

"Yes that would be preferable." Kakashi replied.

"Alright then." Naruto said as he shunshined away to watch what his teammates did to Kakashi.

Five minutes later, and Naruto was in a tree overlooking a smaller clearing that the Uchiha was hiding in, and that Kakashi was making his way towards. Kakashi entered the clearing, and the Uchiha attempted to ambush him. Kunai and shuriken were thrown to no avail as Kakashi dodged them rather soundly. It appeared to have been a distraction, because the Uchiha seemed to have hit Kakashi full on with some flashy fireball jutsu, leaving nothing but ash behind.

Naruto's suspicion that Kakashi had just kawarimi-ed away were confirmed when Kakashi burst out of the ground and knocked him out. Naruto heard a twig snap accompanied by the rustle of vegetation at the other end of the clearing, he looked over and saw pinky-bitch moving towards the Uchiha, caution thrown to the wind with what looked like the start of tears in her eyes.

"How's your plan coming along, Naruto-kun?" Kakashi whispered. Naruto snapped his head over and nearly fell out of the tree when he saw Kakashi crouched next to him on the tree branch.

"Well." Naruto said as he composed himself, "We'll have those bells by noon. I guarantee it."

"Well then, I'm going to see how your Kunoichi teammate holds up to genjutsu. Demon Art: Hell Viewing Technique." Kakashi whispered.

The pink-haired banshee started screaming for a few minutes and then, after a while, she fell over frothing at the mouth. "They're both down there for you, Naruto-kun, so why don't you tell them your plan so we can get this over with." Kakashi said as he shunshined away.

Naruto nodded, and then dropped down into the clearing. He tied Sasuke and Sakura together, and then shook the two of them awake. "Alright you two, listen up. I have a plan to get the bells from Kakashi, and the best part is you two only have to distract him." This was met with much groaning and gnashing of teeth from the two ninja tied up in front of him, he, however got them to shut up when he informed them that he would be giving the bells to the two of them. "Now here's the plan…."

* * *

**Training Ground Seven, 11:42 AM**

Two Naruto's charged out of the trees in front of Kakashi. He had been waiting for Naruto to attempt to get the bells, and was surprised that it had taken him so long to do so. Now that he was, he was unimpressed. He dodged the hail of kunai and shuriken that had been thrown in his direction, and then threw a couple of his own Kunai to dispel the clones.

The supposed clones kawarimi-ed away right before the kunai hit them. Instead of the clones reappearing Sasuke and Sakura appeared on either side of him holding his arms and keeping him pinned in place.

"Hold him there!" Naruto shouted as he jumped in to the clearing. He was doing handsigns as he fell, and when he landed right behind Kakashi his left hand made half of the ram seal, while he placed his right on the back of Kakashi's head. "[Flesh Style]: [Neural Compliance]!" He screamed as he locked his jaw and drove his fingernails into the palm of his left hand. Kakashi had a pained look on his face for a full minute before he finally caved under Naruto's jutsu.

"Sasuke-kun, Sakura-chan go ahead and take the two bells. Lunch is on me!" he said through clenched teeth. By this time, blood was freely flowing from deep cuts on Naruto's palm, and a little bit was oozing out of the corner of his mouth. This jutsu was an incredibly difficult one for him to use, and the strain that it was putting on his body was enormous.

Once Kakashi had handed the bells to Sasuke and Sakura, Naruto released the jutsu and succumbed to the sweet void of unconsciousness. It was exactly 11:59 AM.

* * *

**Training Ground Seven, Twenty Minutes later.**

Naruto awoke to the smell of food. "What happened?" he asked to the three people sitting near him and stuffing their faces.

"Your plan worked, you all passed." Kakashi said as he motioned for Naruto to join them. "Come and eat, you look exhausted."

Naruto joined them and ate lunch. If the other two member of his team continues to follow his orders, then his team placement may not turn out to be as torturous as he thought it was going to be.

**End Chapter Three**

* * *

AN: I'm not particularly proud of this chapter, and I apologize for the long delay but September was devoted to college apps. Now that those are kind of on break for me, I can get back on my writing schedule. Still looking for a beta reader or readers, pm me if you're interested.

Now I must apologize for the lack of good action. However the wave arc starts next chapter, and so there will be some good stuff there. I promise. In the meantime, why don't you review. And tell me what you thought of this chapter. This may ring a tad hollow right now, but the reviews do really help me write faster, as long as life doesn't get in the way.

A special thanks to Ghibly101 for her input and ideas, and Selena Estella for patiently waiting for me to get caught up on Adolescence.

Thank you,

E E Merica


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